Unions in Europe press for new worker protections to counter heat stress

A construction worker uses a sun umbrella while working from an elevated platform in Perugia, Italy. Photograph: Michael Nguyen/NurPhoto/Shutterstock View image in fullscreen A construction worker uses a sun umbrella while working from an elevated platform in Perugia, Italy. Photograph: Michael Nguyen/NurPhoto/Shutterstock Unions in Europe press for new worker protections to counter heat stress Climate crisis prompts calls for workplace temperature limits and rights to heat breaks and adjusted working hours As Europe’s sweltering summer continues, trades unions are mounting a push for new laws to counter deadly heat stress that is linked to an estimated 230 workplace deaths a year. This year’s toll may be even higher, with 1,300 excess European deaths already connected to the June heatwave by the World Health Organization , and other estimates running as high as 20,000 . Unions want enforceable workplace thermal limits, based on the wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) – which measures the human body’s ability to cool itself – along with mandatory job site heat risk assessments. They are also calling for rights to heat breaks, outdoor shade, water, cooling and adjusted working hours to be included in a forthcoming quality jobs law, in a draft directive text seen by the Guardian. Enrico Somaglia, the general secretary of the European Federation of Food, Agriculture and Tourism Trade Unions (Effat), said: “Climate change is no longer a distant environmental challenge, it is a daily occupational health and safety risk, as well as a threat to job stability. The current European legal framework is clearly not sufficient to defend against it.” While the draft text is not a legal document, it is being taken up by sympathetic MEPs and officials as the torrid summer of 2026 forces the issue up the political agenda. The plan proposes maximum workplace WBGTs on a scale between 30C and 32.5C for work varying from very high to low intensity. Beyond these temperatures, work would be suspended. Any employers bucking the rules would face “effective, proportionate and dissuasive” sanctions. Effat is one of three union groups representing 15 million workers backing the proposed heat safety law, along with the European Federation of Public Service Unions and the European Federation of Building and Woodworkers, amid a groundswell of union support. In the UK, where on Wednesday an amber heat alert was issued for the south-west of England, with temperatures expected to soar in a new heatwave, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) is calling on ministers to introduce a maximum working temperature, a demand recently backed by the government’s advisers on the Climate Change Committee. View image in fullscreen A refuse worker in central London during a heatwave in June. Photograph: Toby Shepheard/AFP/Getty Images The TUC wants rules to ensure employers take steps to reduce workplace temperatures if they get above 24C and the right for workers to stop work if they reach 30C, or 27C